Читать книгу Just For Her - Katherine O' Neal - Страница 8

She tried to pull free, but his hand—massive in its leather armor—tightened on hers as he ground it into his swollen bulge. “Have you ever touched a man before? Of course you haven’t. Because you’re a lady, and ladies don’t sully themselves by taking a man’s cock in their hands.”

“You animal!” she cried, fighting to push him away, her breath coming in jerky outraged gasps.

His other hand snaked out and grabbed her by the hair. She tried to move away, but the bed pressed into the backs of her knees, halting her retreat. His fist tightened in the flowing locks and slowly, but with unremitting insistence, he eased her head back, holding it pinned as he pressed her hand into him. She felt him lunge and swell beneath her palm, a pulsing, live serpent straining to strike.

“That’s right,” he growled. “I’m a strong, sex-starved predatory beast who already has the scent of you in his blood. And because you’re a lady, you’re afraid. Because in your fantasies, your brave, tortured hero bows down and worships at your feet. He brings you flowers and reads you poetry. But he doesn’t dare touch you. Woman, you’ve been living in a dream world. Because no man—not even your precious hero—wants a lady in his bed. What he wants is a shamelessly aroused, yielding bitch—responsive…helpless…wild—a woman so thrilled by him that she shatters at his very touch.”

He bent his head and razed her lips with his, crushing the tender flesh, forcing her mouth open with his tongue.

She felt her head begin to spin, felt herself losing something. It terrified her and she wrenched her mouth away.

“I’ll scream,” she said desperately. “My butler will come—”

His mouth crooked briefly. “I doubt very much that you’d want your butler to find you in such a compromising position.”

Without warning, his gloved hand came to rest on the scalloped lace neckline of her nightgown. With one savage rip, he snatched the flimsy material from her body. It dangled before her scandalized eyes, a frothy piece of white nothing, gently blowing from a clenched black-gloved fist.

As the night breeze hit her, she gaped up at him, shivering with horror and panic.

Dear God! What have I done?

His gaze raked over the body he’d so summarily exposed. Beneath his breath, he swore, “Sweet Christ, you’re more ravishing than I’d imagined.”

Through her shock, she could feel him studying her trembling body, taking in the sight of it leisurely, hungrily, unashamed, like some heathen warrior accessing his spoils. She sensed, through her panic, that somehow she’d unleashed in him something raw and savage, some primal force she knew instinctively—now, when it was too late—couldn’t be controlled or contained.

Reflexively, her hands came up to cover herself, seeking to shield her breasts from his rapacious glare. Even as she did, she caught the flare of something dangerous in the eyes behind the mask.

He twisted the hair in his fist—not enough to hurt her, just enough to emphasize the power he exerted over her—and slowly, deliberately, used his superior strength to move each of her hands stiffly to her sides. The blaze of his eyes warned her not to repeat the imprudent resistance.

“You may think it’s poetry you love. Flowers and music and moonlight walks along the beach. But what you really want is a man who’ll rip away the shackles that bind you. The icy shackles of a body that’s never been made to feel.”

“You’re wrong,” she cried. “I wanted a champion, not a molester.”

Abruptly, he swooped her up in his powerful arms, swinging her around so she felt dizzy and disoriented. She briefly felt the flex of his hardened muscles before he laid her on the bed. As she sank into the softness, he stood above her, a dark feral figure swathed in the light of the sterling moon. She tried to scoot across the bed, to move out of his reach, but he sat down and, reaching out, took her throat in his hand. She felt the leather close around her neck, not enough to choke her, but enough to hold her pinned where he wanted her, lying flat on her back and helpless beside him.

“You want a hero, woman? Then I’ll give you a hero.” He put his other hand on her abdomen, ignoring the unconscious flinch as she felt the leather on her flesh. “You needn’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.” Slowly, possessively, his hand began to skim upward, spanning her waist, gliding over her ribcage, coming up to cup her breast. Even through the glove, he must surely feel the hammering of her heart. When she thrashed her head from side to side in protest, he merely tightened his grip on her throat so she was forced to lie still. When she did, he eased the pressure once again.

“A hero wouldn’t rape you.” His thumb began to toy with her nipple. A current shot through her. Against her will, her nipple hardened. He saw it and the corners of his mouth curled into a slow, knowing smile.

“He’d touch you—patiently—taking his time, showing you what it is to become a stimulated…vital…woman.”

“Please,” she whispered.

His hand moved on her, awakening responses she’d never felt before—treacherous curls of longing that made her want to hide her face in shame. “Your champion would naturally have your best interests at heart. But he wouldn’t be swayed by the pleading of a woman who doesn’t know yet what’s in store for her.” His hand explored her freely, noting how she gave a little jump as he brushed the ticklish underarm, how, despite her desire to resist, she softened and arched into him when he caressed the lobe of her ear.

“He’d permit you no inhibitions, no reservations.” His hand trailed her flesh in a downward spiral, causing little shivers to flutter through her. She gritted her teeth, fighting the languorous desire to melt into his words and his hand, keeping her eyes closed tightly as she willed him to stop. But then, they flew open suddenly, because his hand had dipped into the hollow between her legs. He pried her legs open, splitting them wide. When she tried to close them, he pressed his thumb against her throat once again until, with a frustrated cry, she allowed him access. He touched her tender core, stroking gently as shock waves jolted through her. An instant later, he took his hand away, bringing it to her face.

“Put my glove in your teeth,” he commanded. She did so because she knew he’d make her if she refused. As her teeth clamped down on the leather, he pulled his hand free. Taking the glove from her mouth, he tossed it aside.

Then she felt his naked fingers playing in the sensitive folds. “That’s better,” he said. “I want to feel your lust.”

“I have no lust,” she denied.

“Ah, but you will. It’s the hero’s mission to incite lust in his lady fair. In short, to teach you to moan and writhe.”

As he stroked her with unhesitating fingers, she felt her juices begin to flow, smearing his hand. Her breath began to deepen, to catch in her throat. It became an agony, keeping up her guard, pretending she felt nothing. Because the truth was, he was nearly driving her mad.

“He’d force you to feel. Knowing you’d thank him later for his resolve.”

She was in misery, trying to control herself, restrain her body’s responses. She’d lost her sense of shock, even of decorum. She couldn’t think. All her resistance was being mowed down with the insistent playing of his expert hand. His fingers were carrying her higher and higher, her hips desperate now to lift and arch into his hand. The hunger increasing like a runaway train.

Then, his mouth at her ear, he rasped, “This is how you should be touched.”

He plunged his fingers into her as he dipped his head and took her nipple in his teeth. She wanted suddenly to throw back her head and scream. She was so famished now, so crazed with need, that she no longer cared what he thought of her. All she could do was feel his fingers in her slippery warmth, his mouth feasting on her nipple and making it hard. She wanted nothing more than to follow where he led, to revel in sensations her body had never known it was possible to feel.

“You can let yourself go,” he whispered, his voice hushed and intimate at her ear. “You’re being touched by a complete stranger. You’ll never see his face, never know who he is. No one will ever know what you do tonight. I swear to you I’ll never tell. And if you sell yourself to get what you want, there’s no one to judge. Whatever pleasure you give or receive exists in another world.”

He kissed her then. A fierce dominating kiss that demanded a response. Without realizing what she was doing, she moaned into his mouth.

But suddenly, his words penetrated the swirling mist in her head. Some last semblance of rational thought whispered that he’d just made a bargain with her. All she had to do was give into his desire, and he could make all her dreams come true.

He could free her from her prison.

Can I do this?

He sensed her withdrawal and put his mouth at her ear. “Don’t think. I know your thoughts. What I want—what I demand—is your surrender. Uncontrollable, total, shameless surrender. Because a woman’s body is a wasteland unless she can yield to a man’s touch with glorious abandon.”

There was something exhilarating in the authority he exerted over her. Her body began to move of its own volition as his merciless fingers heated her blood. Some part of her realized that he’d taken his hand from her throat—not needing it now—that it was grazing her body, touching her in ways that made her feel like a hair trigger ready to explode. His hands seemed to be everywhere, in her, all around her, driving her wild. He wouldn’t stop. He played with her, with fingers and mouth, forcing more and more pleasure on a body unused to bliss, determined to make her transformation complete. Patiently, relentlessly, leashing his own urges, watching as bit by bit her resistance was whipped like waves upon the rocks. She began to pant, to moan, to make little whimpering sounds in the back of her throat that sounded as if she were begging for more. It was glorious, what he was doing to her. She’d never felt more helpless in her life, more as if she were being sucked down in a whirlpool of sensation that was like need and satisfaction, all at the same time.

And then she felt it rack through her. Lust as she’d never known it was possible to feel. Stark, raw, blistering. Sweeping everything away so she opened her legs wide, bucking now beneath the penetration of his hand, crying out for—what?

As her orgasm blasted through her, she knew. She felt the scream rise to her throat just before his mouth crashed down on hers. Muffling her impassioned shriek, knowing it was coming. Kissing her again, more insistently this time, hurtling her senses out of control as she spun and danced and floated at his command.

As she drifted down, she did so as another self. Gone was the woman she’d been, smashed beneath his hands. The new woman—the joyous wondrous woman whose body was juicy and ripe and knew, only now, that it had been starved—despaired when he began to move away. She clutched at him, wrapping her arms about his neck, seeking his astonishing mouth, moaning, “I had no idea. More…I want more.”

Slowly, with his superior strength, he eased her away from him, holding her at arm’s length. “Do you trust me now?” he asked.

“Yes. Oh, yes.”

“And you’ll do anything I ask?”

“Anything. Only do stop stalling and give me more.”

She preened and stretched before him, seeking his mouth. She sensed his smile, as it was too dark to see him. The backs of his fingers grazed her breasts, dynamite to her already ragged senses. “Hurry,” she urged.

He leaned over and picked something up off the floor. She heard the rip of material, then he was winding a torn strip of lace around her wrists. When she flinched, he told her, “I can’t take the chance of you—in passion or from other motives—slipping off my mask. You’ve only had the most basic lesson in surrender. There’s so much more to experience and enjoy. A woman only learns true surrender when she’s had a thorough…and masterful…fucking. But to give you that, I must safeguard my disguise. So I ask again…do you want to know what you’ve been missing? And if so, will you trust me enough to surrender yourself completely?”

Did she trust him? She didn’t even know him. But simmering in lust, her realities were transformed. She saw silhouetted before her neither thief not hero, but an irresistibly seductive man. A man who knew how to make her body sing.

“Yes,” she told him, casting caution aside.

In a trance, she let him tie her hands deftly to the headboard so that she lay stretched out before him, her hands bound above her head, her breasts riding high.

And then he was on top of her, his manly weight welcome, his knowing hands causing her to cry out in need. He touched her, kissed her, licked her flesh like a jungle cat claiming his prize, until once again she felt delirious, tugging at the bonds at her wrists.

“Has anything in your poetry ever been as thrilling as this?”

With a single lunge, he drove himself inside. She cried out again, but his mouth came down to stifle it. He drove into her hard and strong. Beautifully. Exquisitely. Forcefully. Leaving no question as to who was in charge. Her pleasure was so intense it was almost anguish. Feeling the same catapulting sensation she had before, feeling helpless and deliciously swept away by the magnificent force of his possession.

“Nothing was ever like this,” she gasped. “I didn’t know anything could be like this.”

He clutched her face with both hands, looking down fiercely into her eyes. Then he kissed her face, her lips, moving into her with long luscious strokes, his breath one with hers until she felt herself meld into him. Carrying her with him higher and higher, hungrier than before, wild with passion. Sensing her impending climax, waiting for her, urging her on, until at last his patience was rewarded and he could let himself loose. Exploding together with her, clinging to her, catching her cries of passion in his mouth.

It seemed to Jules that the roar of the sea had consumed them. But as she lay spent beneath him and her breath slowed, she realized the roar had been in her head. It was so quiet in the room that his breathing sounded like thunder to her ears. She wanted so to hold him close, to tell him all the wonders a woman wants to tell the man who’s shown her what he had…

But she couldn’t. Her hands were still bound above her head.

“Untie me,” she whispered, still simmering in a wondrously joyful satisfaction.

Her voice roused him. He sat up and looked around as if he’d lost track of where he was. But instead of reaching up to free her as she expected, he retrieved his discarded glove, put it on again, then rose, adjusting his clothing. He came to stand beside her, his gaze scanning her prone body, as if looking for one last time.

“And now you know,” he said softly, in that husky whisper of a voice.

Yes, now she knew all that she’d been missing. She knew, too, that she would never be the same. She was about to tell him so when his voice, changed now in some indefinable way, cut her off.

“Even so, it’s not enough to convince me.”

“Convince you?” She’d been so carried away, she couldn’t think of what he meant.

“I’m not going to take on Dominic DeRohan. I have no wish to commit suicide. But thank you, just the same.”

He reached up and gave the lace binding a tug, freeing her hands. Then, as quickly as a panther leaping from peril, he stepped onto her balcony and vanished into the night.